Ditch Party Que
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It would just take a smidgeon of originality, of reportorial daring, of plain old gumption and outside-the-box thinking to commission some lab reports on water quality in Valencia and build a story around the results, or to identify some people whose health has been affected and tell their stories, or to even just explain the known health effects of some of the toxins involved. Somehow, such reporting is vanishingly rare.
You have to remember that most media outlets in Venezuela are privately owned by persons or families that have other main interests in their respective regions or nationwide, such as hotels, farms, etc. and have their radios or newspapers as a means to gain more respectability. I do not know if this is still the case, but I remember my Guariqueño dad telling me that the Lago de Valencia was the collector of residual waters of all the Cochineras in the vicinity, from which we get those delicious chicharrones and pernil sandwiches in La Encrucijada and El Rey de los Chicharrones de Aragua (Damn, culinary nostalgia fit…
![Ditch Party Que](http://i.cbc.ca/1.1894964.1380894559!/cpImage/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/original_620/hkn-canadiens-megantic-20131003-topix.jpg)
Juan, I am happy they talk about Miguel Peña. Now, just in case: all that vegetation you see there can be deceptive, there are lots of people living there. What he shows is the Southernmost part of that parish. A little bit to the North slums appear and and they don’t stop until you are about 1 km to the South of Bolívar Square. There are over 210,000 voters in that parish alone, about half a million people living in 220 km2.
![Ditch Party Que](https://liquidlandmine.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/long_goodbye_syndrome_worms.png)
Maduro insistió en que “ellos tienen un plan de emboscadas políticas, mediáticas, para tratar de escalar en situaciones diversas de violencia” y destacó como ejemplos agresiones a periodistas de medios estatales o las denuncias sobre el mal estado del agua en el país hechas recientemente por algunos dirigentes opositores.
![Ditch Party Que](http://www.odysseybmx.com/dailyword/archivesV2/2011/02/sd-ditch-party.jpg)
So what happened when and if (Even a long, long time ago before the current administration) a journalist in the region started fussing with water quality on the radio? The radio station owner’s friends with cochineras in the region would give their Compadre a friendly call and tell him “dile a ese reporterillo tuyo que deje la pendejada, que me vas a meter en un problema, guevón” before the authorities could get involved and force them to spend actual money on water treatment plants or drainage systems.
![Ditch Party Que](https://lintvwane.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/canada-soldiers-hit_carr.jpg%253Fw%253D512)
Nos parece interesante el enfoque del comentario que haces. Por nuestra parte, realizamos un sincero esfuerzo por no “escribir acerca de lo que escribimos” ni “hablar acerca de lo que hablamos”. El Radar se empeña en ser megáfono y plataforma para comunidades a las que generalmente no les es sencillo hacerse escuchar, sobre todo en temas como la calidad del agua cuya importancia, aunque obvia, no era evidente para los actores políticos (incluido el gobierno) hace tres años, cuando empezamos a trabajarlo de manera sistemática.
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Miguel I read this article. I am a Limnologist by training and I have noticed how hard is for people to understand what is going on. There are several problems 1.Lack of treatment plants for the water entering Lago de Valencia. This lake has been eutropic (high concentration of phosphorus and nitrogen) since my days in the UCV. The uncontrol human growth and the input of sewage water has increase enoumously en the las 20 years….which bring us to problem number two 2. The water used for the population of this area original were not dumped in Lago Valencia…
![Ditch Party Que](http://www.ritmo-latino.nl/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Me-Libere-Salsa-1-Ritmo-Latino-Zumba-dansschool-oosterhout2-495x400.png)
Unlike some I hope the Scots vote for independence, they are significantly further to the left and get $1,600 more per person in welfare benefits than the UK as a whole, and their leaving would be good thing for the rest of the UK. At the same time having the Conservative Party lose its leadership will weaken them and make UKIP an even more attractive political party. If UKIP gains control they will leave the decaying carcass known as the EU, and take an ax to the UK’s big government reducing its backbreaking burden on the economy.
![Ditch Party Que](http://content.everydayhealth.com/wte3.0/gcms/pg-lose-weight-zumba-06-full.jpg)
Any Venezuelan learned at school that Valencia Lake is polluted. No proof needed. ✓ If you mix clean water and dirty water you end up with dirty water. Therefore, transfusing water from Valencia Lake to Pao Cachinche dam equals pollution of a water supply. ✓ Everyone has watched pictures of the Guarapiche river with oil flowing along its course. A picture is worth a thousand words. ✓ Some people think the Chavez government is doing badly. Globovision puts their two cents. ✓ Other people see the president’s image at stake so they go to his rescue.
Apparently since September 2011 there were studies that proved that the water in Valencia does not meet international drinking water standards. http://www.eluniversal.com/nacional-y-politica/120326/indican-que-agua-que-se-distribuye-en-valencia-contiene-elementos-toxi . Why do people making the denounces about water pollution haven’t cited this study? And know is just only a small news in the Universal website that a study from one of the most important Public Universities in the Country proves that the water in the third largest city is not drinkable.
It is easier and safer for everyone to cover the stupid political argument around water quality, because then it remains a “he said-she said” argument where no one is right or wrong. You do the actual work and you might get a reprimand. And now that I live abroad, I can tell you it is not a situation exclusive to Venezuela.